The Rules That Went Unnoticed
by Kaiqua
Summary: Causes and effects of change. Minor or major, they all stem from the Death Note's How To Use.  Mainly gen; For Want Of A Nail; some angst; each story stands alone and has separate warnings inside.
1. Wet Paper

**_Wet Paper  
_**Words: 100  
Setting: Chapter 1 / Episode 1  
Spoilers: None  
Warnings: Slight possible squick

* * *

**How to Use: XXXI**

- The number of pages of the Death Note will never run out.

* * *

Two nights after picking up the notebook of death, madness strikes Light Yagami.

The Death Note is grabbed roughly by its binding, huge clumps of pages tearing out in a fury born of guilt.

They scatter to the floor, seemingly harmless.

When all that remains is a black cover and the instructions, the pages are gathered and shredded.

Each scrap is plunged into a bowl of water.

A smuggled spoon mixes them gingerly, and the paste goes down his throat in three sobbing gulps.

Next morning the pages have grown back, ready for use once again.

Light feels like vomiting.


	2. False Negative

_**False Negative  
**_Words: 696  
Setting: Chapter 1 / Episode 1  
Spoilers: Spoils the first chapter/episode, as well as some of the properties of the Death Note  
Warnings: Canon attempted assault, slight head-canon

* * *

**How to Use: IX**

- The Death Note will be rendered useless if the victim's name is misspelled four times.

* * *

It all seemed obvious to Light at that moment. He needed to test the so-called Death Note; needed to prove to himself whether it was real or not. To be honest, most of him believed that it couldn't be real.

He was a good person, not a common murderer. Still, if he absolutely _had_ to kill someone, then there surely couldn't be a better candidate right now than the frankly despicable creature currently tormenting a woman in front of him. Standing only metres away, Light had seen and made his judgement. Light even knew his name now, and with the man right there he could test the Death Note immediately.

After pulling it out quickly and concealing it with a magazine, Light paused. A though surfaced, one that was both unwanted and worrying.

The biker deserved to die, but if the Death Note was real, was he willingly lowering himself to the level of a murderer? Was that something he could live with?

He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. If this succeeded, then logically he was already guilty of an unnatural murder. He had to try, had to find out if his soul was damned for sure or if he was just the victim of a morbid joke. That would mean that the criminal on television would have died from badly timed natural causes; an unusual occurrence, but stranger things had happened.

A loud bark of laughter from the biker gang broke through Light's thoughts, tugging him back to reality. Rapidly he put his pen to the paper and wrote Takuo Shibuimaru's death by accident in every variation of the name he could remember. _Now I wonder what will happen_, he thought, almost wryly.

Seconds passed. In front of him, the woman pulled herself away from the bikers and dashed towards the other side of the road. Shibuimaru leapt onto his bike and almost followed, but a truck abruptly passed in front of him, blocking the way. By the time it had passed, the woman had already entered a building and escaped. Laughing, the gang members consoled Shibuimaru for "missing his chance." One suggested that they get some food, and so they all crowded into the convenience store where Light was currently standing.

Light stared at the group shamelessly. Shibuimaru was at the centre, loud and unmistakeably alive. This _had_ to mean the Death Note was a fake. Looking at Shibuimaru now, joking with the other bikers, Light felt queasy at the thought of what he had intended to do. In that moment, the biker had been everything that he hated in the world, but Light couldn't see now how that had warranted the man's death. It was slightly worrying how much hatred he had been able to channel against someone who he had never seen before in his life.

As he left the convenience store he dropped the notebook into a bin. He didn't like leaving trash lying around, and it wouldn't serve as anything more than a macabre novelty toy for anyone he might have been willing to give it to. He resolved to wash his hands of the odd thing, regardless of the vague disappointment and boredom beginning to stir again inside of him.

Five steps from the door, Light's train of thought abruptly slipped away. Was there something he'd been doing?  
It must have been nothing, he decided as he hurried home.

* * *

When the Shinigami Ryuk tracked the Death Note down several days later, he was soundly disappointed. Just one name and a bunch of misspellings? This game was boring him to tears before it had even started.

Although, he thought, eyeing the intangible cord stretching from the Death Note in his hands, he could always track down whoever had written those names. Ownership or not, they had been the first human to touch it and so they should be easy to find. Popping up and pointing out the misspellings was bound to get him a bit of a laugh, and with any luck the human might prove more interesting once they'd seen him.

If not, he'd just kill the guy and find someone else; he had the time.


End file.
